By The SportsXchange/YahooSports/Rivals.com
March 4, 2009
Getting Inside
It seems as if this Cornell team just likes making things hard for itself. Every time it seems to be on the verge of locking up the conference title, it slips up and gives the pack of contenders a little bit of hope that the Big Red can be chased down.
The Big Red haven’t been consistent away from home, where the team is a nice but unspectacular 4-3 in league play. It has games where it struggles to shoot the basketball, and the recent offensive sputtering by Louis Dale isn’t helping either. But talent-wise, Cornell still has the best basketball team in the Ivy League.
But not by much.
That’s something Steve Donahue has pointed out several times this season, discussing the narrow margin between the Big Red and the rest of the conference. Compounding that is the usual hazard of conference play: familiarity.
Everyone’s seen what Donahue likes his team to do, so preparing for it is easier than it would be for a similar non-conference foe. Everyone knows all about the likes of Ryan Wittman and Dale by now.
In addition, the fact that Cornell was the top team in the league last year and went undefeated in Ivy play hasn’t been lost on its opponents. The Big Red has gotten everyone’s best shot all season, and it’s been apparent that teams are spending more of their focus on Cornell than on travel partner Columbia. Everyone has been looking to knock off the champs.
One of those teams was Princeton. The Tigers have arguably the season’s biggest upset, a 61-41 embarrassment of Cornell on Feb. 7. The high-powered Big Red offense managed just 14 field goals and shot 32 percent from the field and 2-for-17 from 3-point range, the team’s worst offensive showing of the year.
Cornell gets a chance for payback this weekend. A win would lock up the Ivy League title and send the team back to the NCAA Tournament. But as the Big Red should know by now, that’s not something it can take for granted.
Notes, Quotes
• Cornell should set the school’s single-season 3-point record this weekend. The Big Red has 222 treys so far, six shy of the mark set by last year’s team.
• The Big Red has a big edge in that the final two games of the Ivy season are at home. Cornell has a 19-game home-court winning streak, and is 11-0 at Newman Arena this season.
Quote To Note: “We just got to work hard this last week in practice. Make sure we win these last two games coming up and win the Ivy League championship.”—G Louis Dale told the Cornell Daily Sun.
Strategy And Personnel
Adam Wire is losing time as a frontcourt reserve. Both Brian Kreefer and Jason Battle have been taking minutes in recent games, as coach Steve Donahue tinkers with the rotation down the stretch.
Player Rotation: Usual starters—G Louis Dale, G Geoff Reeves, C Jeff Foote, F Ryan Wittman, F Alex Tyler. Key subs—G Chris Wroblewski, G Adam Gore, F Adam Wire, F Brian Kreefer, G/F Jason Battle.
Game Review:
Cornell 85, Brown 45
Cornell 75, Dartmouth 57
Harvard 71, Cornell 70
Game Preview:
vs. Pennsylvania, Friday, March 6
vs. Princeton, Saturday, March 7
In Focus: Cornell can lock up the Ivy League crown with a win against Princeton on March 7. To do that, it will have to figure out how to solve a defense that held it in check when the teams faced off at Jadwin Gym in February. The Big Red shot 21.8 percent in that game, and went 2-for-17 from 3-point range.
Roster Report:
• Louis Dale enters the weekend in a shooting slump. He’s 4-for-19 from 3-point range over his past four games, and went 3-for-12 from the field in the loss to Harvard.
• Ryan Wittman struggled in Cornell’s first meeting with Princeton, scoring nine points and going 1-for-6 from 3-point range. He’s made 24 of his 43 attempts from beyond the arc since then, good for a 56-percent rate.
• F Brian Kreefer doesn’t get a ton of shots, but he’s deadly once he does. He’s shooting 69 percent (24-for-35) from the floor in Ivy League play.
OTHER IVY LEAGUE TEAM REPORTS
Columbia can do travel partner Cornell a big favor by beating Princeton, which could allow the Big Red to lock up the conference title before Cornell faces the Tigers on March 7. This is a matchup in which Columbia’s lack of size will hurt, as the Tigers outrebounded the Lions 41-26 in the first game, and Columbia shot less than 24 percent and was held to 11 points at the half. The good news is that it’s hard to see the offense doing any worse than it did in that 63-35 blowout.
From the Dartmouth Team Report:
Dartmouth is 7-5 in the Ivy League heading into its season-ending road trip to Yale and Brown. If it wins both games, Cornell gets swept, and Princeton loses once, the Big Green would tie for the title and reach a playoff.
Most likely, those title chances died when the Big Green fell by 18 points at home to Cornell on Feb. 27. But one win over the weekend would give Dartmouth a winning record in conference play, the first time in a decade the team would have accomplished that.
It’s too late for the Crimson to get into the NCAA Tournament this year, but Harvard’s late-season surge gives reason for pride and optimism heading into the final week of the season.
Harvard has won three in a row after a 2-7 start in Ivy play. It has beaten preseason No. 2 pick Pennsylvania on the road, scored 72 points to knock off a Columbia team noted for its defense, and got the capstone victory on Feb. 28, a one-point win over Ivy League leader Cornell.
Harvard’s defense has been spotty this season, but the team put the clamps on against Cornell. The Big Red made just 13 of its 30 shots in the second half.
The Crimson outshone the Big Red at the free-throw line, making 20 of 25 attempts at the stripe while Cornell was going 9-for-16.
“We kept huddling up and saying that we needed to buckle down. It was great to see that because I personally have lost a lot of games coming down the wire like that in my career, so it was really cool to have one go the other way, especially tonight.” — G Drew Housman told the Harvard Crimson after the victory over Cornell.
Glen Miller is going with seven core players in his rotation these days. Most of the time he goes to the bench, Miller goes smaller rather than bigger. That might change this week against a Cornell squad that is bigger than the typical Ivy foe.From the Princeton Team Report:
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Penn could do its travel partner Princeton a big favor if it can knock off Cornell on March 6. When the teams first met, the Quakers took an early seven-point lead but were down 15 at the break and never got back into the game. But Harrison Gaines will be more than ready to see the Big Red again—he’s owned Cornell as a Quaker, and he had 19 points in the last game against the Ivy leaders.
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Harrison Gaines is one Quaker who won’t be intimidated by Cornell. He scored 20 points against the Big Red earlier this season, and had 19 points in each of the two games he played against Cornell as a freshman a year ago.
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Conor Turley hasn’t gotten much playing time this season, but there’s a good chance he’ll see more than usual against Cornell. He started and played 16 minutes when the teams first met, as coach Glen Miller wanted the team’s biggest and most physical lineup on the court.
Princeton is 7-4 with three games left to play. Wins in its two games this weekend, against Columbia and Cornell, and a victory over Penn in its regular-season finale would guarantee at least a share of first place.
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If Princeton beats Columbia on March 6, it will enter its game the next night against Cornell with its season on the line. When the teams met at Jadwin Gym a month ago, the Tigers defense flummoxed the Big Red and held them to 14-for-44 from the field and 2-for-17 from 3-point range. If they manage to get into the Cornell shooters’ heads again, the Tigers could give themselves a chance to shock everyone and win the Ivy title.
A win over Princeton would have gotten the team within a game of first-place Cornell, but instead the Bulldogs trail by two with two games left in the season and need to win out and bank on Cornell losing two home games and Princeton beating Cornell and then falling to one of its remaining two opponents.
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